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Industrial Gases News From Around The World From Premier Welding

Posted on 26.01.2018 |
Updated on 01.05.2018 |

Premier Welding are distributors of industrial gases, specifically on behalf of Air Liquide, which is well known in the medical and industrial gases sectors. Air Liquide gives benefits of worldwide resources and expertise to its UK customer base through agents like Premier Welding.

The industrial gas industry has seen better days since the beginning of the year 2017 and Premier Welding keep on top of the news to ensure we source the best value product for our customers, old and new alike. There have been many project announcements, breaking M&A news and capacity investments all around the world. Of these many mergers and acquisitions the Linde and Praxair merger was making the headlines all year long. All this positivity is expected to grow by bounds in 2018 as long as external forces don’t hinder the positive industry’s growth. Plant additions and expansions are expected this year, especially in the Asia-Pacific market. Below are some of the Gasworld’s highlights expected in the next 1 year. Some of the highlights from the Middle East and Africa include the following.

Saudi Arabia

It is expected that the largest project in the whole gas business industry should be started this year in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. The biggest commercial gas complex in the world, which was built and operated by Air Products and ACWA Holding, is set to supply 70,000 metric tons industrial gas every day, 55,000 of nitrogen, and 20,000 units of oxygen to a Saudi refinery that is currently being built in Jazan. The company is set to commence its work late this year or early 2019 as the project is already underway. Once the anticipated facility finally gets built, it will need 500mW to become operational and will have six trains. This factory is 25% owned by JV of Air products, and the rest of the percentage is owned by ACWA Holdings.

Turkey

There are expectations of a new TechnipFMC hydrogen plant that is set to start and stream with an old refinery in Izmir, Aliaga this year. This is after it was awarded a lucrative contract of supplying proprietary technology, extensive engineering and procurement services for a hydrogen plant in November 2015. The contract was awarded by the STAR Aegean Refinery. The plant is expected to produce 160,000 Nm3/h of hydrogen, and the refinery will use top notch export steam.

Qatar

Although Qatari helium supply made the headlines for the wrong reasons in 2017 when there was a shortage of supply for a short period, it is not expected to happen again. The situation caught the worldwide helium supply business unawares and demonstrated just how risky the business could get. However, it also highlighted how Qatari helium is important globally, especially when there is a likelihood of the BLM-controlled Federal Helium Reserve in Texas getting shut down.

This year, Qatari helium is poised to hit the airwaves for the right reasons as its latest plant- Qatar III is expected to commence its operations this year. The plant is located in Ras Laffan Industrial City where Helium 1 and 2 plants are. It is expected to produce around 0.4 billion cubic feet of liquid helium annually.

Although this plant is going to be smaller than the original one, it will bring a big boost to the worldwide helium market in the years to come, and buyers have been speculating about how much gas it will be able to produce. Air Products got the Sales and Purchase Agreement to get helium from Helium 3 on a long-term basis.

Virginia, Free State province, South Africa

This country boasts of 25 billion cubic feet reserves of natural gas and helium with the latter being in high concentrations of around 3-4% by volume. Gasworld expects a capacity of 100-150million ft3 every year starting in 2018.

Tanzania

Helium One and another company have started looking for helium in Lake Rukwa, and this venture will continue this year. This company has already acquired a lot of airborne geophysical data and already received initial grids in mid-2017. By 2018, Helium One had collected and done an analysis of around 1,500 soil samples searching for helium, hydrogen, carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons and nitrogen in the Rukwa area. All these processes were meant to determine whether there were any prospects and this year, drilling is expected to commence.